Constitution Ratification

The Constitution is important to ratify because it sets laws and principles that establish the function, nature, offices, powers, and limits of an organization such as a government, or charity. It also protects the rights of people, and of the states, by telling government what it cannot do. Even though the Articles of Confederation did not work out the way it was planned, the Constitution is an improved, fixed Articles of Confederation. The Constitution will improve our country and government. This will be done in several ways. First, it is said that there will be a checks and balances. What that is – is the Three Branches of Government will never over-power each other. The Legislative checks Executive and Judicial (They can overturn a veto with certain amount of votes and appoint lower courts), Executive checks Legislative and Judicial (They can veto a bill and appoint Supreme Court justices), and lastly Judicial checks Legislative and executive by declaring something unconstitutional. Checks and Balances are great so the President will never get too powerful and not one branch can be overturned and become infused with power.
Of course the Founding Fathers had to include individual rights/freedoms. First, it sets up a fair form of government. In other words the government, by law is required to give individuals freedom of speech, religion, and press. Second, it sets up rules for which the government to work by creating boundaries for state government laws and federal government laws. Third, the Bill of Rights outlines our freedom in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The Constitution is one of the cornerstones of this country as it relates to our rights as Americans. It needs to be protected at all costs. It is too important a document not to be protected.
For all the entrepreneurs, whether it will be a small, family owned business or a…...

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...HISTORICAL ESSAY #1
Confederation and Constitution
The Articles of Confederation was agreed to by Congress on November 15, 1777 and was ratified and in force on March 1, 1781. By the year 1787, this new government had fallen short of the expectations of the people it was intended to govern. The weaknesses in The Articles of Confederation were numerous and had, in the thinking of many prominent men of that time, failed and would lead to a state of anarchy. There was such a sense of urgency to amend it that there seemed to be an atmosphere of panic among many of our Founding Fathers.
John Dickenson and fellow members of the 2nd Continental Congress, weary of monarchy rule, had created the Articles of Confederation as a listing of twelve specific Powers given Congress by which to govern. Legislation required nine votes to pass. Each state had only one vote and this was problematic to the larger states, as their problems, more often than not, were based on a larger population and it was not unusual that the smaller states didn’t understand or want to pay for the solutions. Some lesser acts did not require nine votes to pass, but simply a majority of those present.
Acts of Significant Consequence did require nine votes. The trouble with all of this was that even if nine votes could be achieved, there was no enforcement of law to be implemented by Congress. Congress could make law but not enforce it. It could charge states for their share of national...

...There is a contrast in both the interests and intents amongst the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration comes off as a “passionate outcry of abuse and emancipation for the colonists (Hornberger, 2001),” while the Constitution avoids the Revolution inspired tone that is present in the Declaration. Combined, the Declaration and the Constitution gave way to a liberal government. The tone of the Declaration is one of pure emotion that resulted in a set of events that left the colonists not only furious, but desperate to break away from Great Britain as well.
The Declaration of Independence contains a long list of allegations from the colonists regarding abuse, stating that King George III of Great Britain was responsible for them. The fear of these abuses occurring within the newly found country of America is the reason that the Bill of Rights was formed. A majority of the first ten amendments to the Constitution are responses to specific, British abuses. For example, in regards to the “charge of King George III making judges dependent on his will alone, as well has his denial of the right to a trial by jury (Hornberger, 2001),” the Constitution states that all citizens shall enjoy the right to a "speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." By stating that defendants shall be tried in the district in which the supposed crime was committed, the authors of the Bill of Rights......

...Confederation and Constitution
United States History
Professor:
9/30/12
The Articles of Confederation were a great start to shaping and unifying our country, but it was just that, a “start”. It needed to take the country as a whole into consideration in order for it to hold this unity in place. The Articles of Confederation led to the Constitution of the United States. Although similar in some aspects, very different in others. The articles had many weaknesses that were changed in the Constitution. There were many compromises made between the states in order to effectively draft the Constitution. Roger Sherman’s Plan kept the Constitutional Convention together which was later known as the Great Compromise. The fight for the Constitution had just begun and the ratification processes needed to take place. Even with some states being in favor of the Constitution it would take time to get the nine states needed to complete this process. The states in favor would called themselves The Federalist and those opposed were called the Anti-Federalist. The Federalist set out to change the mind of the remaining states with a series of letters that were written to newspapers.
The Articles of Confederation were used as a base for the Constitution. The ideas from the Articles of Confederation were used in the writing of the Constitution. Both the Articles and the Constitution established “federal” systems of multiple sovereigns whose continued existence was......

...
The Costitution A.K.A the "supreme law of the land," Is the most important Developement in American Constitutional thinking to take place during 1776-1787. The constitution was concerned in developeing a new way of government. In 1776 a constitution was not in place, And simply calling a document a constitution did not make it legally distinct from any ordinary legislation. A constitution is the body of rules in accordance with which the powers of a government are distributed and excersised.
How did the U.S. come to have writen the constitution? There are three Charters that influenced this. Firstly, the influene of the colonial charters. Secondly, was the church covenants, and Thirdly the influence of english precedent, these developed a habit of drawing up constitutional documents for purpose of placing limitations on the king or the government.(Hutchinsons,2)
The general court later wrote a new constitution to replace the Royal Charters. The general Court agreed to a convention, Which purpose was only to write a constitution. After the writing of the constitution a Convention was then set up to allow the people of Massachussetts to overlook this set up a two part process, Framing and ratification by the people that the writers of Constitution followed. The preamble was revised up until the last days of the convention. Instead of listing the people of the states individually, The final wording encripted the American people as "WE."......

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Historical Essay: |
Confederation and Constitution |
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Jason Sherman |
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The Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, was adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. However, sanction of the Articles of Confederation by all thirteen states did not occur until March 1, 1781. The Articles created a loose confederation of sovereign states and a weak central government, which resulted in most of the power residing with the state governments. The need for a stronger Federal government soon became apparent and eventually led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The present United States Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation on March 4, 1789 (Researchers, 2013).
Some weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation that ultimately resulted in failure were the fact that each state only had one vote in Congress, regardless of size, Congress did not have the power to tax, Congress did not have the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce, there was no executive branch to enforce any acts passed by Congress, there was no nation court system, Amendments to the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote, and laws required a 9/13 majority to pass in Congress. Under the Articles of Confederation, states often argued amongst themselves. They also refused to financially support the national government, who was also powerless to enforce any acts it did pass. Some states began making......

...March 3rd, 2014
Ratification: “We the People” by the People
For many years and for many reasons the ratification of the Constitution was thought to be performed by our fore fathers. The Constitution was and still is the combination of important laws that governs our Nation. It was very important to our fore fathers that we had these laws in place to make sure we honored the ideas that they fought so hard for and that this nation was built on. Although they did mold the Constitution Pauline Maier tells a different story as to how the Constitution was ratified. In the book Ratification the People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788 Maier argues how the people played an important part in ratifying what we today call our Constitution. She was very successful as she identified how the articles came about and how they were reviewed and became laws once nine of the thirteen states approved the Articles of the Confederation. She had dates and documents as well as sources she referred to as proof of her argument that the people played an important role in deciding what articles would become laws that were combined to serve as our ratified Constitution.
Although the Constitution is a collection of laws that govern our nation it took a while and consideration of people from all thirteen states to make this document official. This debate began in on September the 19th in 1787 when a newspaper printed the Constitution that our fore fathers created and started a debate that lasted......

...Sample Constitution
Article 1: Name
The name of the organization shall be __________, hereinafter referred to as __________.
Article 2: Mission
This section outlines why the club exists. This is where the mandate of the club is introduced detailing what purpose the club shall serve.
Article 3: Membership
This section describes who can be a member of the club. It is the clause of the Club
Committee looks at to determine whether the club is limited or unlimited. There are two
mandatory clauses for this section. The first shall state that at all times your club will have a minimum of 20 members, 2/3 of which are active members of the Students’ Union. The second shall state that your club will collect a minimum $1.00 membership fee per individual member each year.
Example:
Membership is open to any member of the Memorial University of Newfoundland community. A valid membership shall be recognized for the term September to August. Membership may be obtained by registering with the club executive.
Article 4: Students’ Union
This section certifies that the club recognizes the policies and by-laws of the Students’ Union. Failure to comply with these policies and by-laws will result the de-sanctioning of the club.
Example:
acknowledges and will abide by the Students’ Union By-laws and
Policies unless otherwise approved by the Student Activities & Organizations Committee. We are aware that will no longer remain a Students’ Union club if a Policy or By-law is......

...Constitution
Constitutional Amendments:
• Founding Fathers initially desired TO MAKE AMENDMENT DIFFICULT although they had recognized the need for eventually doing so.
• TWO-STAGE PROCESS – The processes required super-majorities of more than 50% such as two-thirds or a three-quarters majority.
• Once the amendment has been proposed it is sent to the states for ratification. An amendment can be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures or by state constitutional conventions in three-quarters of the states. Of the 27 amendments to the constitution only one has been ratified by state constitutional conventions – The 21st amendment which repealed the 18th amendment and ended prohibition.
• Only six amendments have failed at the ratification stage in over 220 years. The most recent was the amendment designed to guarantee equal rights for women. Proposed in 1972, only 35 state legislatures ratified it – three short of the required ¾.
Amendments proposed by: Amendments ratified by:
Congress: 2/3 majority in both houses required State legislature: ¾ of the state legislature must vote to ratify
National constitutional convention: called by at least 2/3s of the states State constitutional convention: ¾ of the states must hold conventions and vote to ratify
The Bill of Rights were a group of ten amendments proposed together by Congress in September 1789 and ratified together by ¾ of the states in December 1791. The Bill of Rights was created to sugar the impact......

...Constitution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Constitution (disambiguation).
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed.[1] These rules together make up, i.e.constitute, what the entity is. When these principles are written down into a single document or set of legal documents, those documents may be said to embody a writtenconstitution; if they are written down in a single comprehensive document, it is said to embody a codified constitution.
Constitutions concern different levels of organizations, from sovereign states to companies and unincorporated associations. A treaty which establishes an international organization is also its constitution, in that it would define how that organization is constituted. Within states, a constitution defines the principles upon which the state is based, the procedure in which laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially codified constitutions, also act as limiters of state power, by establishing lines which a state's rulers cannot cross, such as fundamental rights. An example is the constitution of the United States of America.
George Washington at Constitutional Conventionof 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world,[2] containing 444 articles in 22 parts,[3][4] 12 schedules and 118 amendments, with......

...1. Why is the idea of amending a definition of marriage into the Constitution so controversial? Do you think the controversy is over the issue itself (i.e., same-sex marriage), or the fact that the Constitution is being used to address this issue? Explain.
The controversy surrounding same-sex marriage is due to the Constitution being used to address the issue. Some factions would argue that marriage is more of a religious, social and moral issue than a political one. The Constitution was written to protect the people’s political freedom and also limit the powers of the government, hence a political document and not a moral one. Though the Bill of Rights was drafted to define basic liberties such as freedom of religion, speech, and press and guarantee defendant’s rights (Edwards, Wattenberg and Lineberry, Page 56); it does not specifically mention marriage as a right or liberty. Others would argue that through interpretation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has established that marriage is a civil right and an amendment would limit the rights of individuals to the “pursuit of happiness” as included in the Bill of Rights.
References:
Edwards, George. C; Wattenberg, Martin. P and Lineberry, Robert. L. Government in America. People, Politics, and Policy. 2012 Election Edition.
2. Which of the groups that you examined above opposed the amendment, and why? Which ones supported the amendment, and why?
National Organization for Marriage (NOM) supported the......

...Constitution Paper
Alexandra Davis Bourda
HIS/110
March 9, 2015
James Halm
The Constitution has addressed many problems in the Article of Confederation and Declaration of Independence. Some took more time than others but they got fixed either way. As you know every problem comes with a solution. If the problem did not have a solution then things would be different in today’s world.
The weakness that the Constitution addressed in the Articles of Confederation were Congress did not have enough power under the Articles. They could not raise an army, collect taxes, regulate trade between states or foreign trade, and force states to follow laws. The way they address it was that the constitution gives congress enumerated powers. Enumerated is a power that is specifically listed. An example for it is that congress has the power to raise taxes. Another way the address the problem was that the constitution also gives provides the congress with wiggle room. General welfare clause says that congress has the power to make laws that provide for the well being of its citizen.. Necessary and proper clause – congress has the power to make laws necessary and proper to enact enumerated powers.
The other weakness was that the states had more power in the national, central, federal government. Federalism - The US constitution divides power between the Federal/National government and state government. Some powers are given specifically to the federal government (declare war and make......

...especially the white communities in the South.
The United States Constitution has secured an unprecedented degree of human freedom, upholding the rule of law, securing the blessings of liberty, and providing the framework for the people of America to build a great, prosperous, and just nation unlike any other in the world.
George Washington thought that it was “little short of a miracle” that the delegates could agree on the Constitution. Americans had stumbled on this road before. The United States had established an earlier constitution in 1781, the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, each state governed itself through elected representatives, and the state representatives in turn elected a weak central government, one so feeble that it was unworkable. This league of states, hastily crafted during wartime, had to be replaced with a real government.
The challenge was devising stable institutional arrangements that would reconcile majority rule and minority rights, that is, reflect the consent of the governed but avoid majority tyranny. The new constitution would need to secure the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence and do so through a republican form of government. The founders responded with a written Constitution that created a strong government of limited powers, with the then-novel institutions of the separation of powers and federalism.
Amendments to the Constitution
Amendment I
The first ten Amendments (Bill of Rights)
were......

...LatishaDollison
HIS/115
Mr. Randy Shuler
Constitution Paper
University of Phoenix
3/29/15
America is glorified as a land of freedom. As a country we have certain rights and
Privileges gained simply by the fact that we are American citizens. We are also fortunate that these rights are protected through what is called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Documents protect our truths and rights as a citizen. This wasn’t always so. There had to be a Time before the Constitution and in that time it was a verbal war between those for it an against. The people who were for the Constitution were called Federalists. These people
Understood that the Constitution that was being debated was highly important if not essential to the form of government the people desired. They were well organized men and women. Surprisingly they were less than half the population. Because of their organization and determinism they did end up winning the verbal war and the constitution was accepted and
Ratified by all the states eventually. The Federalists procured victory over a long period of time however. It was a slow ongoing war. They were fighting against many people and sometimes almost whole states. The Process was laborious and harsh. It was back and forth and George Washington stated in his letter to Henry Knox, “Under the circumstances enumerated in your letters, the favorable decision, which has taken place in that State, could hardly have been expected. Nothing less......

...Constitution
What is a constitution?
• Set of rules seeking to establishing the duties, powers and functions of the various institutions of government
• To regulate the relationships between and among the institutions
• Define the relationship between the state and the individual, define extent of civil liberty
Types of Constitution
• Codified and uncodified
o Codified – enshrined in law and based on 1 single authoritative document outlining powers of institutions + government, as well as a statement of the rights of citizen’s
▪ Document is authoritative, highest law of the land. Binds all political institutions – leads to 2 tier legal system
▪ Provisions of it are entrenched, difficult to amend or abolish
▪ It is judiciable, all political bodies are subject to authority of the courts, in particular a supreme court.
o Uncodified – increasingly rare, UK one of few
▪ Not authoritative, constitutional laws treated same as ordinary laws
▪ Not entrenched, constitution can be changed through the normal process for enacting statute law.
▪ Not judiciable, judges do not have legal standard to declare that actions of other bodies are constitutional/not constitutional.
o However:
▪ No constitution is entirely written, written documents do not encompass all aspects of constitutional practice
▪ No constitution...

...Amendments to the Constitution
Since the Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 there have only been twenty seven amendments ratified. The process to ratifying an amendment is not an easy one, so the need to adopt these changes has to be great to pass through this process. Each of the amendments that have been passed have effected this society greatly, some of the most fundamental changes to the society have come through the ratification of the thirteenth through fifteenth amendments.
The process of passing an amendment to the Constitution is a lengthy and complex process. The first step is to have a proposal written for the future amendment. There are two ways this proposal can begin, the first way is for two-thirds of both houses of Congress to vote to amend the constitution. The other way a proposal can move forward is that two-thirds of the state legislatures can formally ask Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose an amendment. After the proposal has been accepted, the process of ratification begins. The process to ratify an amendment is not any easier. Three fourths of the state legislatures must approve the amendment or each states ratification conventions must accept the amendment. There is one stipulation on this process, the Supreme Court has ruled that the ratification process must be completed within a reasonable time after the proposal. Although there has not been any official time frame, the longest amendment process was seven years...